Experience
by Redfeatherz66
Summary: Cas is a fairly omniscient, all-powerful angel. This doesn't mean he knows anything about anything. Sometimes the confusing references, the half-explained stories, and the simple things he's never done- they get to him, and he wants to step up and experience it. Including: learning to drive, getting high, caffeine rush, the flu, and many more. (Destiel if you squint.)


Dean was sick of he and Sam's own stupidity. It didn't bother Sam as much as it bothered him, but Dean really, really, really didn't like travelling via angel mojo. They would go to a bar or carnival or club or whatever, and it would be Sam, Dean, and Cas. Simple math- they needed one person to be sober to take care of the others, and Cas didn't really drink. So Sam and Dean would get feeling pretty good, and they'd think, oh, we don't need to be _that_ careful, Cas can get us back.

Problem- Cas can't drive. And stupid Drunk Dean (the elder hunter often thought of Drunk Dean as another person who was out to get sober, normal Dean into ridiculous predicaments) never thought about that, or just thought, whatever, angel mojo is fine, gimmie another drink.

Dean was sick (sometimes physically) of it. So he was putting his foot down.

"Cas, you're gonna learn how to drive. C'mon," he said abruptly, closing his laptop and snatching the TV remote from the arm of the couch, shutting it off.

"We were about to find out who sabotaged Kelly's youth restoring facial surgery," Cas grumbled.

"You've had way too much daytime television. If you're going to be visiting earth often and hanging out with non-angelic folk like Sam and I, you're going to need to learn how to drive. No more of this useless-without-mojo thing. Or mojo travelling, I hate it."

"That makes sense," Cas said reasonably. Dean tossed him the keys and he caught them one handed without looking, opened the door, and slid in the driver's seat.

There ended his professional, casual manner.

"It looks much less… complicated from the backseat," the angel said, a hint of panic in his voice.

"Yeah, well, it's not as difficult as it looks. Half the stuff you can just ignore for now. Be glad it's not a stick."

"A 'stick'?" the angel asked, looking confused as to where to put his hands. He wasn't sure what was safe.

"It's a manual transmission, you have to shift it yourself. This one will do it automatically for you, so you just have to control the speed and direction. Don't even think of touching the radio. Or the air."

"Don't touch the air?!"

"No, I mean… don't touch the knobs that control the heat and air conditioning. Okay, okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. See that slot there? Key goes there. Push in the brakes, then push in the key turn it forward until the engine starts," Dean said confidently.

Castiel just stared at the wheel and the dash, his hands hovering in the air, undecided. "Um… where are the brakes?"

"Son of a bitch…" Dean muttered, rubbing his eyes. "We're really starting from zero here, aren't we? Alright…" He leaned way over Cas, to his door, pulled a lever, and suddenly Cas's seat slid backwards about a foot, startling him. But now he was far enough back that he could see beneath the wheel and dash, and so could Dean, and he pointed to each part. "Those pedals on the floor by your feet. The left one, kind of wide, that's the brakes. The more vertical one to the right, that's the gas. Don't touch that yet. So push on the brakes."

Cas doubled over and started trying to wriggle forward to push the brake… with his hand.

"What the hell are you doing? Sit up, featherbrains. Push it with your foot. Here," Dean sighed, rolled his eyes, and reached over to pull the bar again, sliding the seat to it's original position.

"Then why didn't you say so?" Cas grumbled quietly, but he sat up and pushed in the break with his foot, twisting and reaching. Dean frowned.

"Wait, wait. You're… not as tall as Sam and I. You're gonna have to adjust your seat. Forget starting it for a minute- reach beside your seat, where I went to move the seat, pull up on that lever and hold it up. Slide your butt forward and move your seat until you can reach the pedals and push them in easily. Got it right? Good. Let go of the lever. Now push the brakes and turn the key."

Cas adjusted his seat and pushed the brake, noting how much more comfortable it was. He turned the key and lights turned on, and the vehicle hummed.

"That sounds much more quiet than it normally does," he observed.

"That's cause it's not on yet, you've just turned on the battery. Turn the key further, then you'll hear it."

He turned the key farther, and sure enough, the engine roared to life, making him jump.

"Okay. Okay. I'm doing this. I've got this," Cas said mostly to himself, sounding nervous.

"Yep, you've got this. Yep. So- now! This stick here, this changes what the car will do. Right now it's at 'P'. P stands for Park. Below that is R for Reverse, N for Neutral, D for Drive, and a few numbers- ignore the numbers, you'll never use those," Dean said, pointing at each, feeling a bit like a kindergarden teacher. He wished he had a whistle.

"What's neutral?"

"It's like park, but in park, the brakes are… they're like stuck on. It stays. In neutral, it can roll, everything is just relaxed. Neutral, right? So we want to put it in reverse and back out of this spot," he explained, glad there were no cars around him. The parking lot was almost completely empty- the motel they were staying at was mostly for summer tourist season, they were probably one of three groups staying total. "To put it in reverse, you're gonna push on the brakes again- little side note, when you're doing anything like changing gears or starting it or stopping it, it's a good idea to push in the brakes. When in doubt, brake. Oh, and when you let go of the brakes and you're in drive or reverse, the car will move at 5 or 10 mph without you having to touch the gas. So don't let go of the brakes until you're ready to move."

"Got it."

"So, push in the brakes, and move this stick back to the R. When you let go of the brakes, we're going to roll back. Ease of the brakes, nice and slow."

Cas began easing his foot back from pressing the brakes, slow as he could. Dean waited patiently. For about thirty seconds.

"Sometime today, bud."

Cas nodded stiffly and pulled his foot off the brake more quickly than he'd intended. The car lurched backwards, and he panicked and slammed his foot back down on the brake, making it jerk again. Dean swore, then laughed.

"This is gonna be awful. Shit. Alright, try again. A little bit more smoothly. And- jeezum, Cas- put your hands on the wheel. In drive, whichever way you turn it, the car will turn. It turns the front wheels in that direction. So when you're in reverse, the car will turn the opposite way of the way you turn the wheel. Kinda confusing. You'll get the feel of it, though. Hopefully. But right now we're backing straight up, and when I say to start turning the wheel, then obey. Alright, fido?"

"I understand, and resent your comparison of me to a hound."

"Noted. Now try again."

He did it again, much more smoothly.

"Good, good! Now, start turning the wheel toward me. Clockwise." The car began to turn as Cas obeyed. But Cas was turning the wheel like it was a spigot, spinning it until it hit it's limit and jerked in his hands. The front of the car whipped to the left, and the back pivoted right.

"Whoa, whoa! Hold on!" Dean cried, which made the angel panic and stomp on the brake again. "Gentle with the wheel! You don't need to turn it that much. Slower. Think of how I drive, I don't spin it around like that. It's all about being smooth. Start slow, then speed up. Start turning the wheel slow, see how that goes, turn it more or faster if you need to. Same with the brakes and the gas."

"I've got it. I've got it," he muttered, reassuring Dean and himself.

He tried again, and it went much better. He was a bit slow, but Dean accepted that and knew better than to push him to go faster. He was already nervous enough.

"That's far enough." The car lurched to another sharp stop, but less sharp than before. "We're pretending there were cars in the spots around us. Now that we've damaged them enough and safely escaped, we're going to drive. Brake again, shift it to D. Straighten the wheel back out, ease off the brakes. There's a pretty straight road right over there, I haven't seen any traffic and it goes out to an old unused air port. Perfect place to learn to drive. Head over there."

They began moving at a slow pace, Cas still not touching the gas. They crawled out of the parking lot and onto the road, and Dean was practically itching to get him to go faster. Driving slow sucked. He opened his mouth as they started to nose onto the road-

-And almost whacked his face on the dash as Cas slammed on the brake again. Cas actually _did_ whack his face on the steering wheel.

"Ow," he grumbled, licking his teeth and tasting blood on his lips before it healed.

"Cas! The hell!?" Dean shouted.

"There was a sign."

"Yeah, a _yield_ sign! It doesn't mean stop, it means be careful of other cars. If you have a yield sign pointed at you, then it means look around and let other cars have the rightaway. You've got to wait for them, but if there's no one to wait for, you don't have to stop. You alright?" he asked mid-shout, noticing the blood on his lips.

"Yeah, fine."

"Good. Now keep going. When we get on the road, slowly start pushing on the gas, accelerate slowly. See that arrow? That shows your speed. Speed limit here is 65, but as a new driver," he sighed regretfully, "you should probably only go about 40."

Cas pushed on the gas too hard, then on the brakes to correct, then back on the gas too slowly and barely moved. The engine was making an unhappy roaring noise.

"What the- _have you got a foot on each pedal!?_"

"Yes. Is that wrong?" Cas asked uncertainly.

"Yes! Stop the car." They lurched, and this time both of them had wised up and were ready to keep themselves from slamming into the dash. "Put it back in park, don't forget the brakes. Get out," he said, opening his own door and climbing out. "I'm driving us to the airport, and then you're going to drive from there. Meanwhile, as I'm driving, watch what I'm doing. Monkey see, monkey do, right?"

"I don't know what that means," Cas said bluntly, getting out and sitting in the passenger seat.

"Means watch what I do and try to study it so you can do better when we get there. Learn from me, see what I do and then emulate. Good lord, my seat is all jacked up now," he groaned, readjusting it.

"I'm not actually short- I'm tall for a human male. You and your brother are more than tall, you're abnormally tall," Cas pointed out.

"The better to hunt with. Not that you'd understand that reference."

Cas carefully watched as Dean drove, leaning back to look at his feet occasionally. Dean didn't like the angel watching him so closely- he generally didn't like people staring or gawking at him, unless it happened to be a buxom beauty- but he did his best to ignore it, as he'd told him to watch.

They got to the airport quickly, and Cas did a better job, though he kept wanting to use two feet rather than just one. After Dean pointed out that it was bad for the engine and he was hurting his baby (here there was murder in the hunter's eyes) Cas didn't use two feet again. They still lurched, and he hated backing up, but he started to get the hang of it.

Until, whilst practicing backing up (which consisted of putting it in reverse and turning the wheel and trying to get the hang of everything turning the wrong way) Cas backed into a light post.

_CRACK_. The impact was sharper than he'd expected, and his head whacked against the headrest.

He looked over and met Dean's surprised look with his own expression of sheer horror.

"Did you just…?" Dean cried, looking back at the post in the rear window, then back at Cas.

Cas said nothing, his face seemingly stuck in that look of shock and wide-eyed fear.

"Shit. Shit!" Dean shouted, throwing his door open and walking around to inspect the damage. It wasn't as bad as he'd expected- the good ol' Impala had taken the hit like a tank, only a small dent and a scratch. He could work the dent out, given time and patience, he was sure. Putting his hands on his hips, he leaned against the side of it and breathed, calming himself down, relieved that it wasn't that bad. He felt a bit bad about his reaction- he'd rebuilt the whole thing after the accident with the truck, and God only knew how many times he'd dinged it up, driving underage or drunk or wounded or just too fast.

He looked curiously back at the cab- Cas hadn't moved. He could see him sitting up front, hands still on the wheel, engine still running but his foot mashed on the brake. Hmm.

He went over and slid back in the passenger seat. "It's not bad. We're fine, no worries. Put 'er in drive and let's try again, only watch out."

Cas just looked at him, swallowing nervously. Dean blinked patiently at the surprised angel, until he finally said something. "You… aren't upset?"

"I'm not really happy, but it's fine, I'm not gonna kill you or anything," he snorted.

"You always said you would."

"What?"

"You always said you would kill me if I damaged your, uh, 'baby'. And you said anyone who scratched, dented, broke, harmed, scuffed, stole, or even smudged it, you would kill," he explained with a pained, expectant expression.

"Cas. I wasn't serious, it's just an empty threat. I'm not gonna kill you, alright? It's okay. Just… try not to do it again. You hear?" Dean huffed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Yes, I hear you. I understand. Thank you for your mercy," the angel said seriously.

Dean snorted again, reached over and put it in gear for him, and told him to drive or else he'd never get better, and he'd better damn well be good by tonight cause he was gonna get drunk, and Drunk Dean wouldn't have any mercy. Cas panicked again and began doing the big-eyed heavy-breathing thing, but Dean reassured him that he was just kidding.

"I have a hard time seeing the humor in the threat of bodily harm and possible destruction of life," Cas muttered, and Dean let it pass.

By the time they headed back, Cas could handle driving on the road in a mostly straight line at a mostly steady speed, he could park, and he could back up very well, insisting they practiced that a lot more. He parked them fairly haphazardly, tires exactly on the line on one side but still technically in his spot, (and he smacked the brakes too hard and hit his face again) turned off the car, and sat back with a relieved sigh.

"That was… stressful. Why do you and Sam fight over who gets to drive so much? I don't find it to be enjoyable," he explained.

"It will be when you get better at it, trust me. And you've got, on your teeth-… eh, never mind," Dean explained, grinning. "C'mon, let's go see if Sammy's had any luck finding a job." He opened the door and let Cas walk in first, unexpectedly kind.

"Hey, where have you guys been?" Sam asked, looking up from a table covered in newspapers.

"Dean was allowing me to-," Cas began with a smile, but Sam cut him off.

"Dude, you've got blood all over your teeth! What the hell?" he said, voice slightly higher with concern and panic.

Cas turned to bare his teeth at the mirror in the bathroom, noticing that his teeth were, in fact, very bloody from the last smack into the steering wheel.

Dean cackled, leaning on the door frame, while Sam looked from the angel to the hunter with confusion.

"Are you guys high again?"

Dean just laughed harder.


End file.
